


I Found You

by lalers



Series: AoKuro Week 2k16 [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, AoKuro - Freeform, AoKuro Week, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Seirin High (Freeform)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:41:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalers/pseuds/lalers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>He sips quietly on his vanilla milkshake instead of tutting at the navy haired boy. </p>
  <p>Man. </p>
  <p>Aomine’s a man now. </p>
  <p>Kuroko lies back on his chair to ogle at Aomine freely. He sees the way Aomine’s eyes have matured from their darker shade of navy and clearing into a softer shade, the way the veins twirling around his hands stretch at the slightest movement of his fingers, the way his collarbone seeps out under his collared dress shirt. It all makes Kuroko’s head spin. </p>
  <p>Then, to prove the fact that his sole reason for existing is to cause Kuroko’s migraines, he freezes and blows out from his teeth. “Brain freeze!” </p>
  <p>He’s a man-child. </p>
</blockquote>AKA that soulmate, reincarnation AU nobody asked for.<p>AoKuro Week [Day 1:] Reincarnation + College</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Found You

The first day of college was actually much like his first day at Seirin. He walked past many, many, (so many) people that nudged their way past him without so much as an apology for making him lose his place on the book he was reading. He had just barely made it into the school (the admission’s office nearly overlooked his application,) but when he received the letter of acceptance it filled him with great warmth that resulted in a small party with the Seirin basketball team, even their seniors who are now currently in their first year of university. 

 

It was the first day of autumn and the scarf Riko had knitted for him as a leaving present felt like it was scratching against his pale skin. Being the good friend he was, Kuroko still brought it with him anyways as a token of gratitude. Before leaving high school, he had a reunion with his former middle school friends, the Generation of Miracles. The night ended with four out of the five members passed out in Kuroko’s living room, the only one with a clear head being Akashi Seijuro. 

 

Kuroko’s lips twist into a small private smile when he remembers the way he came to in the morning. Murasakibara looked like a dead octopus with his long limbs stretching out across Kuroko’s apartment floor, Midorima drooling ever so slightly on the love seat next to his and Kise was passed out on the floor, his head resting against Kuroko’s ankles. No matter how great their company was, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the aching feeling under his ribcage. 

 

How has he gotten this far in life without meeting him yet? 

 

In all his past lives, Kuroko’s met Aomine before middle school. The latest he found the dark-haired boy was sixth grade graduation. Like he said, before middle school. But now he’s entering college and he still hasn’t found Aomine. 

 

Could it be? 

 

Was Aomine _gone?_

 

The thought alone managed to put an abrupt stop to his footsteps and his lungs too, apparently.

 

_No._ Kuroko can’t think like this. 

 

“He’ll come back to me,” Kuroko whispers to the novel he was reading before resuming his path to his first class. 

 

 

 

If asked, Kuroko would say that his favourite lifetime was when he and Aomine were reincarnated into royalty. The first time he met Aomine. Kuroko was the son of the Japanese emperor Kuroko Norio, a man of principles with a kind heart. He remembered his father clearly then, his features blurring as the lifetimes came and went, but his dad was his dad and that never changed. Kuroko Norio came with Tetsuya wherever he goes, except that he couldn’t remember like Kuroko can.

 

Aomine’s mother was a tough ruler from the South that had to come over to Tokyo to settle peace treaties with his father. Kuroko was five when he first heard Aomine’s voice in that lifetime. 

 

“Mama,” came the whine, “I’m bored.” 

 

Kuroko’s chubby feet came to a stop as he heard the enchanting voice. He hides behind the pillar in the common room just close enough to the kitchen entrance that if he were spotted, he could always make a break for it before his parents caught him. 

 

There was a silence before a soothing voice answered to the child’s call. “Dai-chan, be polite. We are under another ruler’s reign.”

 

Kuroko sticks his thumb to his lip to ensure that he doesn’t make a noise. His mum had always warned him about being rude and eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. He was nearly at the kitchen when the same whining voice called out. 

 

“Oi! You! What’s your name?” 

 

Kuroko keeps walking into the kitchen when someone roughly turns him around causing his thumb to pop out roughly from his mouth as he comes face to face with the rude force. The kid had an annoyed scowl across his face. 

 

“How rude!” the kid bellows. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to walk away when a prince is addressing you?” 

 

The kid was about a year older than Kuroko from the way his legs were stiffer than Kuroko’s jello-like ones. There were so many questions that raced through Kuroko’s mind in that second but the biggest one that took up his entire mind was this. 

 

“You can see me?” 

 

A surprised noise came out of the kid before his eyebrows straighten into furious ones. “What? What kind of question is that? Of course I can see you! Now answer me. Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to walk away when a prince is…” 

 

“Dai-chan!” came the shrill warning, “Who are you talking to?” 

 

The kid in front of him startles in his mother’s warning but doesn’t budge nor apologise to Kuroko. The ruler struts behind her son and whacks him softly, “We are at someone else’s castle. No son of mine will act with such crude manners.” 

 

The kid at least had the sincerity to bow his head in shame under the scold. “Sorry, Mama. But this kid walked away when I tried to talk to him and you always said that I can’t walk away when someone talks to me so why is he not getting scolded?” 

 

Kuroko had trouble keeping up with the tsunami of words that just left the kid’s mouth. The kid’s mother casts a waning glance at Kuroko and nearly screams in surprise. 

 

“How long have you been standing there? What kind of emperor is Kuroko Norio to have someone’s toddler just run around the castle?” 

 

“I’m five,” Kuroko murmurs, not that he was noticed, or so he thought. The kid snaps his head to him. 

 

“You’re five? But you’re so small!” the kid shrieked. 

 

Before Kuroko could reply, arms lifted him off the ground and he was met with his father’s armour. The teal haired boy faced his father with a soft smile, “Toosan.”

 

Emperor Norio presses a chaste kiss on his son’s sky blue hair, “I thought you wouldn’t be awake yet, Tetsuya. What’s up with that?” 

 

Kuroko blushed, aware of the two pair of navy eyes gawking at him. He stuffs his face into his father’s shoulder and muttered a soft, “Hungry.” 

 

Norio laughs, Kuroko’s head lolling side to side with the shake of his father’s shoulders. The emperor waves his hand and two workers immediately arrives by his side. 

“Emperor?” they ask in unison. 

 

Norio hands his son to them with a fond smile, “Take care of him please. He needs his breakfast.” 

 

Without a stutter, the two workers bow their heads to comply to their emperor and proceed to whisk the young prince away into the kitchen. As soon as Kuroko was seen in the kitchen, cooks and maids alike cooed at the young prince and greeted him good morning. 

 

Norio claps his hands and gives his guests a charming smile. “I apologise for my tardiness, I have a really intricate training regimen I’m trying to introduce to my soldiers.” 

 

The Southern ruler gave the emperor a smile and reassures him that all is well, she herself knows how dense soldiers can be (especially in the morning.) Norio laughs at that, “Shall we proceed? I’m sure Prince Aomine-san will find himself quite entertained should he wish to meet my son.” 

 

It takes a while before the young Aomine to reply, he was staring forlornly at the entrance of the kitchen where the baby blue son of the emperor had disappeared to. “Hai! It would be my honour.” 

 

He only even stuttered once. 

 

 

“Kuroko-kun,” hummed his caretaker, Aida Riko, “I hear there’s another prince in the castle.” 

 

Kuroko looks up from his porridge, “Hm?”

 

Riko paused mid-fold in one of Kuroko’s formal wear. “The Souther ruler’s son. Prince Aomine Daiki! Ah, Kuroko-kun, you have to be paying more attention to your father’s notices at dinner.” 

 

Kuroko pouts at his food when he remembers what his father had said to him last night. 

 

_“Tetsuya,” his father says, gaining his attention. “We’re going to have a visitor tomorrow.”_

 

_“Really, toosan?” Kuroko’s azure eyes gleam in excitement. Being the only child was a lonely and taxing task sometimes. Having visitors meant new people._

 

_His father hums and sends him a smile, noticing his son’s apparent enthusiasm. “She’s even bringing her son, too. I’m told that he’s only a few months older than you.”_

 

_The sudden grin that formed on Kuroko’s face was uncontrollable and had his father chortling as the cooks and Riko lost their professionalism and outright cooed at the small prince._

 

 

Kuroko makes a disheartening sound when he connects the dots and realised that the rude kid he met earlier must be the Southern prince. 

 

“Huh, what’s wrong?” Riko asks out of pure habit. 

 

“I met him. He wasn’t very nice.” 

 

Riko throws her head back and guffaws. “I’m sure he isn’t like that really. The Southern has a reputation of being tsunderes, remember?” 

 

“Give him a chance, Kuroko.” 

 

 

Aomine Daiki was a ray of sunshine. Kuroko doesn’t know any better words that would describe him as accurately. Upon meeting again, the kid had bowed furiously as he attempts to make up for his previous actions against the sky blue prince. 

 

Amused, Kuroko had forgiven him and thus began the era of them two. They spent the day running out in the sun much to Riko’s chagrin and the soldiers’ amusement. Aomine was fast, a different kind of swiftness compared to Kuroko’s invisible one, but no less enchanting. Kuroko had convinced Hyuuga Junpei, the leader of his father’s soldiers, to have the entire brigade play hide and seek with the two five year old devils. Until Riko found Hyuuga and snatched him by the ear to scold him properly. 

 

_“Do you know how long I’ve been chasing them? Do you?”_ she shrieks, to which Hyuuga laughs in response. 

 

Aomine showed him cool tricks he learned from his martial arts on the freshly cut grass of the castle garden, which had specks of dirt and follicles of grass clinging on both princes’ kimonos. In turn, Kuroko led Aomine by the hand to where his favourite hide out is. He would never forget the feeling of the other boy’s fingers between his. Not for a millennium. 

 

It was nearly twilight when Aomine’s mother walks out of the conference looking steadier than the first time Kuroko had seen her. By the gentle smile on his father’s face, he can tell that the conference went well. He and Aomine had just returned from their day adventure and had seek out refuge in the common room of the castle where Aomine had actually challenged Hyuuga in a combat. Riko had Kuroko in her lap, both parties looking amused as Hyuuga lost sight of the younger boy who kneed him at his kneecaps and had the soldier doubling forwards. 

 

“Dirty play!” Hyuuga’s words were muffled due to the carpet on the flooring. Riko snickers as Kuroko lets out one of his, very rare, excited laugh that sounds more of like a bird’s high pitched chirp. Aomine stood next to Hyuuga smugly when Kuroko claps his hands wildly from his seat, bouncing up and down on Riko’s lap. 

 

“Again! Again!” he cheered, but before Aomine could agree, the emperor and ruler walked towards their children. 

 

“Tetsuya,” his father chastised fondly, “are you hurting my soldiers again?” 

 

Kuroko grins up at his father when Hyuuga whimpers from his spot. “Hyuuga-sensei got his butt kicked!” 

 

At this, Hyuuga jumped to his feet. “Oi, Kuroko! Your friend wasn’t playing fairly!”

 

The ruler kneeled to her son and eyes him, trying to look disappointed but not fooling anyone with the pride laced in her tone. “Dai-chan, what have I told you with picking fights and playing naughtily?” 

 

Aomine didn’t even try to school his expression into a far more neutral one, “To not do it unless necessary.” 

 

Surprising everyone, Kuroko walks up to the Souther ruler. “Aomine-sama, it would be…” Kuroko worries his lips, trying to remember the lessons he was taught on formality, “it would make my life if Aomine-kun and I could keep on being friends…” 

 

Before he could finish, Aomine had struggled free out of his mother’s embrace and looped an arm around Kuroko’s neck. “What are you talking about, Tetsu? We’re always going to be friends.” 

 

 

The emperor, soldier, and caretaker (even Aomine’s mother) stifled a sound of surprise at the use of the prince’s first name.

 

Kuroko looks at Aomine and remembers the way sunshine felt enveloping his skin and the smell of freshly cut grass. “But you would be so far away… You would make more friends and forget about me.” 

 

Aomine seemed appalled by the idea and promptly shook his head. “No! You’re the best, Tetsu. We’re always going to be friends,” and then the navy haired boy looks to his feet and mutters something incoherent.

 

“What was that, Dai-chan?” his mother asked softly, interested in this new found side of her son. Back at home, Daiki wouldn’t even try to socialise. Except for his caretaker Momoi Satsuki, her son had no one. 

 

“I want to marry you, Tetsu.” 

 

 

The next thirteen years were invisible tattoos littered on Kuroko of every moment they shared together. Every laugh, every fight, every inside joke… they were all there so apparent and real. He could feel the way they were attached, how he knew that nothing would ever separate them from that point on. He could even feel the many miles between them when Aomine went back to his palace, leaving Kuroko alone again.

 

A tattoo for the first time Kuroko met Aomine’s parents. Another for when he first called him ‘Daiki.’ Ten more for the first time they shared a bed and woke up together and all the times after that. A large one for when Kuroko finally ends Aomine’s awkward torture and asked him out instead when they were thirteen. Hundreds and hundreds more of their first kiss, the first time they held hands, the first date, the first time Aomine said the three words to Kuroko, the first time Kuroko cooked him breakfast and the last time Aomine cooked dinner, which resulted in a kitchen fire.

 

He could feel it all and see them all as if his memories had been photographed and tucked neatly into a picture book in his mind. 

 

One night, Aomine was over at his castle and they were enjoying a bowl of hintaro between them on the balcony of Kuroko’s quarters. 

 

“Tetsu,” Aomine murmurs and Kuroko casts a glance at the tan skinned boy. 

 

For the millionth time, but the first time that night, Kuroko notices how fine Aomine has grown since the first time they met. How much more fined his cheekbones and jawline are, how the strands of his hair that Kuroko didn’t think could get any darker, blended into one with the night sky. Tonight Aomine sported a white kimono, a deep contrast to his skin and Kuroko’s own black one. The older of the two rests his head against the bamboo wall, the moonlight gracing his features to almost a god-like one. 

 

“Yes, Daiki?” Kuroko gulps, hintaro long forgotten. 

 

When Aomine lolls his head to the side to look at him, Kuroko held down a gasp at the predator swimming in Aomine’s dark navy orbs. 

 

“Will you marry me?” 

 

Kuroko’s eyes widen in surprise and he was momentarily shocked out of his lustful daze, “Huh? But we haven’t even come of age yet. There’s still so much we need to learn.” 

 

“Are you saying no, Tetsu?” Aomine murmurs, inching slowly to him. Kuroko remains frozen in his place, his eyes are surprisingly glazed. 

 

“What - no, Daiki, I would never, but why so sudden? We still have three years left until we’re twenty-one.” 

 

Aomine’s eyes burn deep into his own light blue ones. 

 

“Because,” he says darkly, “if we’re not married I can’t do this.” 

 

The night had a layer of haziness on it, perhaps from both princes’ laboured breaths and sweat as they clung onto each other for dear life. This tattoo was larger and burned brighter than most of the other ones. This was the first time Kuroko realised that yes, this man is mine and I am his and he has no intention of letting go. 

 

They got married in the fall, the first day of autumn, and the two kingdoms were joined as the Kuroko-Aomine territory of Southern and Central Japan. 

 

-

 

Kuroko sighs. His first class was Japanese Literature.

 

When he enters the auditorium, the fresh coolness of the outside is dimmed by the suffocating warmth from the stuffy inside. The volume of the room did not surprise him by much. The school Kuroko chose was most known for its literature programme, thus explaining the crowded atmosphere. The first rows up until the last were littered with coloured backpacks and binders, only a few single free seats scattered between them. Kuroko trudges up the stairs in search for a seat with no one next to him and finds one that is next to the stairs and a vacant chair next to it. He dumps himself in the velvet fold-up chair and takes out his notebook. He looks around and notices how almost everyone was out of their seats and chatting with one another as if they were old friends. He doesn’t have that here. Might as well prepare for the lecture.

 

 -

 

One time Kuroko met Aomine in England. They were both transfer students on a scholarship programme for their art skills. That lifetime was spent growing old together in their studio selling canvas after canvas and, finally, opening up their very own museum named ‘ _Lumiere et Ombre_ ’ meaning ‘Light and Shadow’ in French. 

 

 

Sometimes memories of past lives come visit him during his sleep. Sometimes he sees them in the jungle, trying to survive after a plane crash. Sometimes it was that life when he and Aomine were childhood best friends that grew up in Tokyo and adopted two kids. Or maybe the life where he met Aomine in the street, just a few minutes prior to his death. They had just managed to find each other when a drunk driver swerved off the road and had hit Aomine straight on his side. 

 

Yeah. Not all of them were good. 

 

But that wasn’t the worst one. The worst ones haunt him at times like this, when he can’t find Aomine. The worst ones were the ones where he didn’t find Aomine in time and lost him. 

 

He was around ten years old when it happened. The sky was blue, like all the times he met Aomine, and he knew that he was close. It was a sure fire way of telling, fate’s way of showing him that he was on the right path. He was going to find Aomine soon. 

 

But something was not right. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was but he knew something was off because the sky was doing that thing where it’s telling him he’s really close to Aomine but they’re on a graveyard, visiting his mother. 

 

Just like his dad, Kuroko Ryo was always there and she always followed him with the lack of knowledge of her past life. Just like those many lives before, she never made it to the end with his father. She was always taken too early, too soon. 

 

Kuroko’s hand clenches his father’s much bigger one as he walks with his head down, trying to calm down the way his heart was racing. Unlike those many times before, this time his heart was trying to escape from the scene instead of forcing him to run to Aomine. 

 

He didn’t know what it was and couldn’t give it a name, but the feeling is lurching from his heart all the way to his toes. It’s trying to drown him inside out, trying to twist his guts around his lungs and constrict. 

 

They arrive at his mother’s fresh tombstone and Kuroko places the flowers he bought neatly against the engraved rock. His father gave him a gentle squeeze on his shoulder before making a surprised sound. Kuroko cocks his head upwards in question. 

 

“Huh~,” Norio mutters, holding his son closer to him, “how unfortunate.” 

 

Kuroko tilts his head at that. “What is, Toosan?” 

 

His father points at the tombstone on the right of his mother’s. “That kid died just a day ago.” 

 

The feeling that he had came in tsunami waves now. It’s flushing down his heart and pumping through his veins with numbness. Out of curiosity, Kuroko casts a glance at the grave. 

 

It wouldn’t let him breathe. 

 

In neat print, the grave read: 

 

** Aomine Daiki **

** 31/07/1976 - 04/03/1986 **

** Beloved son and friend **

 

Before he knew it, Kuroko lurched forwards, nearly forgetting his own mother’s grave, and latched onto the grave stone. He shouted until he couldn’t breathe at the wind. He furiously threw sticks onto his grave, hitting the stone with his barehands over and over but it wouldn’t budge. He kept on screaming for Aomine-kun, but he never came. 

 

It took his father three weeks to fully bring Kuroko back from his hysterics. Night and day, for weeks on end, he couldn’t stop crying. It was like someone left the tap to his tear duct open. No, it was more wild than that. His tap exploded and there was no way to calm the gush of water down. Norio had gotten contact with the Aomine family and told them that his son was an old friend that didn’t know of this recent loss. 

 

Aomine’s family had kindly invited them over to dinner, but when they let Kuroko in to see Aomine’s room, the tears came back again. 

 

His bed was his bed, just the way he liked it in all of his past lives. His room was his old and messy room that Kuroko saw again and again, even when he was an imperial prince. When he caught a whiff of Aomine’s bare, but still lingering scent, his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. He immediately apologised to Aomine’s parents for breaking down like this, but they remained silent as they enveloped him in a hug. 

Before the Kurokos left, Aomine’s mother pulled him aside and looked at him with identical navy eyes that made Kuroko stop breathing for a mere second. 

 

“You’re him, aren’t you? Tetsu?” 

 

When Kuroko frantically nodded, Aomine’s mother heaved a dry sob. “Oh, thank god. I finally found you. I was afraid I couldn’t complete what my son asked for his last wish.” 

 

Aomine had remembered. He hadn’t forgotten about him. 

 

Aomine’s mother wiped at her tears before she disappeared from the door only to come back with a small white envelope. 

 

“He wanted me to give this to you.” 

 

_ Tetsu,  _

 

_ If you get this that must mean I’m not there to rip it apart and prevent you from ever reading it, but life is life and you must read this because there’s no other way to do it.  _

 

_ I’m sorry.  _

 

_ I’m sorry that I can’t ever meet you in this life, I’m sorry that we didn’t have enough time, and I’m sorry that I was born with this and couldn’t stop it.  _

 

_ It should make you feel better to know that I’ve never forgotten about you and spent every day until my last thinking of nothing but you and our meeting in this world.  _

 

_ We’ve had some really cool ones, huh?  _

 

_ Remember that time you were a nurse and I was in the military and you had to fix my nose because I pissed off a fellow lieutenant? Or how about that time I had to save you from drowning in a duck pond?_

 

_ Hah, midget.  _

 

_ It’s good in a way that we can’t meet because you wouldn’t have slapped me for that joke. If you did, I’m not so sure I could recover from it.  _

 

_ My condition is… It makes me weak, Tetsu. I’ve got muscular dystrophies which is basically saying that my muscles turn useless and I’m basically unable to use them now. On top of that, I got Lesch-Nyhan disease. I’ve been diagnosed since birth but my death sentence was determined in the second year of my life when they told my parents that I would most likely die due to kidney failure.  _

 

_ It’s… _

 

_ It’s painful, Tetsu. I don’t think I can fight it anymore. I’m being spoon-fed, I can’t walk wherever I want to, I can’t fight like I used to, I can’t… _

 

_ I can’t give up on you, but I can’t take it anymore.  _

 

_ I’m sorry, Tetsu, but I declined to put my name in the organ donor list. It’s not going to change much, anyways. They’ll just replace it, but the pain will still be there. I can feel it under my skin, the way my joints are swollen and hard to move, how every breath I take feels like my last.  _

 

_ I’m sorry. _

 

_ I’ll wait for you in the next life, Tetsu.  _

_ Love, Daiki _

 

 

After that lifetime, Kuroko had always prepared himself for the possibility of never meeting Aomine. Of being too late. And there were lifetimes where it had happened. If he were asked, Kuroko would say he couldn’t keep track, but he knows. He knows that Aomine had slipped through his fingers too soon in twenty four lives, five of them due to car accidents, six of terminal illnesses, and nine reasons that were far too dark for Kuroko to continue, and the remaining four caused by his stupid martyr complex. 

 

\- 

 

“Toosan,” Kuroko whined into the phone. 

 

His father laughed. “I’m just saying, Tetsu. Based on the stories you’ve told me about this guy, he doesn’t seem like the tame type.” 

 

“He is _not_ a stripper,” Kuroko blushed at the words, his pale skin tinting even more when a few heads snap at his direction. 

 

Norio guffawed into the speaker. “Ah, I miss you, Tetsu.” 

 

“I miss you, too, Toosan,” Kuroko let sincerity seep into his voice. It had only been a week since he moved out of his childhood home and he already felt the absence of his father more than ever. 

 

“Well,” his father says, “I need to go open the bakery now. You watch yourself.” 

 

“I will,” Kuroko rolls his eyes even though his father could not see. 

 

“He’ll show up soon, son,” his father’s tone was no longer a humorous one, but in fact a rather serious one full of underlying meanings that only Kuroko could understand. “I love you.” 

 

“I love you too, Toosan.” 

 

 

His professor was a middle-aged man with a dad haircut. Everyone had settled into their seats, the sound of laptops being turned on filtered through the air as the professor scribed his name on the board. The lecture begin and Kuroko was surprised to see that the college horror stories of boring lectures were false, at least for this professor. 

 

Kuroko took on the lecture with gusto, a momentum that was difficult to break. He scribbled his notes and made sure they were legible for him to study later on. The professor was in the middle of describing the difference between the Medieval and Ancient literature when the door bursts open. 

 

The professor pauses in his speech before continuing. Kuroko was in a daze no one can break so he followed the professor’s word and scribed them into paper when he felt a body trying to squeeze his way in front of him.

 

“Ah, sorry, I need to get into the chair next to you. It’s the only one left.” 

 

And then things felt right again because the body next to him felt familiar, and the voice had been the prayer he sought out every night before sleeping.

 

“Aomine-kun?” 

 

The body next to him stiffens, frozen in his place. In any other situation, Kuroko would burst out laughing because Aomine had his head buried nose deep into his satchel on the floor and he looked like an over bent pretzel. 

 

“Daiki?” Kuroko tries again. 

 

Like a firework, Aomine explodes beside him. 

 

“Tetsu!” he screams. 

 

Suddenly all eyes were on them and the professor’s hand had stopped moving against the black board. He looks at them both and, coldly, spits out, “Out.” 

 

 

 

The college he chose was located in the suburbs of Tokyo so there were lots of greenery and empty space and, luckily, a coffee shop just down the road. Aomine bites into his popsicle, the same way he’s done it a billion times before, and Kuroko still cringes when he hears the crunch. He sips quietly on his vanilla milkshake instead of tutting at the navy haired boy. 

 

Man. 

 

Aomine’s a _man_ now. 

 

Kuroko lies back on his chair to ogle at Aomine freely. He sees the way Aomine’s eyes have matured from their darker shade of navy and clearing into a softer shade, the way the veins twirling around his hands stretch at the slightest movement of his fingers, the way his collarbone seeps out under his collared dress shirt. It all makes Kuroko’s head spin. 

 

Then, to prove the fact that his sole reason for existing is to cause Kuroko’s migraines, he freezes and hisses out from his teeth. “Brain freeze!” 

 

He’s a man-child. 

 

“Oi, Tetsu,” Aomine says, a weird edge in his voice, “I’m still not forgiving you, you know.” 

 

“Huh?” Kuroko puts his milkshake down. “What did I do? If anything, I should be the one mad at you.” 

 

Aomine jumps from his seat, nearly knocking the umbrella above them. “What! What did I do? And you’re one to talk, where were you last lifetime?” 

 

“You got us kicked - wait, what?” Kuroko tilts his head in confusion. Last lifetime? 

 

“Oh, don’t pretend like you forgot! I didn’t have you last time. I never met you.” 

 

Kuroko felt the pain under his words. Just like him, Kuroko knows that Aomine had gotten his fair shares of late meetings. But last life time? 

 

Then he remembers. 

 

Then he nearly spat out the gulp of milkshake in his mouth from laughing too hard. 

 

“I was there last lifetime,” Kuroko wheezed out, body still shaking from laughter. It was bizarre. _They_ were bizarre. 

 

Aomine growled, furious at how Kuroko’s taking it lightly when he knows what type of pain is caused from never meeting your soulmate. “Oi, Tetsu! Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny!” 

 

When Kuroko had managed to stop laughing and had caught his breath, he finally gave Aomine an answer. 

 

“I _was_ with you, Daiki. You called me something different though. Tetsu number two. Personally, I like being number one, but whatever floats your boat.” 

 

It takes a while, but the popsicle falls to the floor when Aomine finally puts two and two together. 

 

“You were my dog?!”

 

Just like that, Kuroko went back and lost himself in the barks of laughter. 

 

 

 

That night Kuroko smiled against the lose shirt against his skin and snatched his phone off the counter only to be pulled back into bed. 

 

“What are you doing?” Aomine murmured, his words slurred in sleep. 

 

“I need to text someone.” 

 

Aomine grumbled but never loosened the arm around Kuroko’s waist. 

 

-

 

** Kuroko Tetsuya: I found him **

 

** Toosan: Told you so :)  **

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'M ALIVE 
> 
> AoKuro Week [Day 1:] Reincarnation + College
> 
> So this is my first time writing this OTP and I cannot believe I've never known about them before a few weeks ago. Anyways, this is my first entry for AoKuro week. I'm posting this two days early because I won't have the time to on the actual day to finish and polish things up due to exams. I will be posting this on tumblr during the the actual week though. 
> 
> I hope you liked it.


End file.
